This is a text-only version of an article first published on Tuesday, 5 July 2016. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
THE Revd Mark Balfour and his wife Rosalie (pictured right) fell in love with Guatemala when they visited to see first-hand Duncan Dyason's work with Street Kids Direct.
"It all started with a connection between our youth leader and Duncan.
The youth group were fundraising through 24-hour fasts and sleep outs," said Mark , who was then the Vicar of St Peter's and St Mark's in Maidenhead.
Mark and Rosalie Balfour.
CMS/Jonathan Self A Skype conversation with a children's home in Honduras led to a youth trip, on which Rosalie was one of the leaders.
"Following that first trip, Mark and I then went out to see how, as a church, we might link further with Honduras.
The next year we spent two months in Honduras and Guatemala on sabbatical and had a fantastic time.
Both of our children came to spend time with us while we were out there. "The following year, 2014, was the Balfours' 25th wedding anniversary and to celebrate they decided they wanted to go to back to Guatemala City.
"The Lord opened a way for us to go quickly to revisit some of the places we'd seen and we spent a lot of time in Zone Four, which is home to La Terminal. " La Terminal is the biggest market in central America, attracting 3,000 people every day and has everything from a rubbish dump to a host of different stalls and businesses. "We were really drawn to that place and people were asking us why we were back in Guatemala so soon.
We felt that God had called us on this trip and we thought it was to do with having a further link between our church and Guatemala.
It soon became clear that Jesus was calling us to go there.
We started talking to people about this, starting with Duncan and Bishop Andrew. "We'd been in Maidenhead nearly 10 years, loved our church and weren't looking to leave. " But they were accepted by the Church Mission Society and are now preparing to head to Guatemala as the Oxford-based agency's first mission partners to be heading to Central America. "We are going to be working in a mentoring centre run by Street Kids Direct's partner, Mi Arca, and supporting the volunteers there.
We will be spending time with the kids and doing whatever is needed.
Our long term vision is to begin a new church community in La Terminal.
There are lots of churches in Guatemala but none in that area.
The centre is not a church and we won't necessarily be looking for a traditional church building, but we want to see what form that takes.
It needs to be a community centred on Jesus and one that enables people to encounter him. ""It is difficult leaving family but our sons and our daughter-in-law have been out with us and are looking forward to visiting.
We have ended up going long-term as it's about building relationships and you can't do that short term. "Once they arrive in Guatemala they will spend their first six months in the town of Antigua, about an hour's drive from the capital, intensively learning Spanish, before they move to La Terminal. Mark and Rosalie have two children, Sam, 22 who is married to Lois, and Dylan, 18, who is studying at York University. Click here for more on Christian mission in this Diocese and beyond.